Lost and Found: Episode One THE PILOT
by Heather Robertson
Summary: Introduction to upcoming Lewis Fanfics, short for that reason. Full story titled "Lost and Found: Episode One". Lewis and Hathaway get a rape case where nothing is what is seems. Like a lack of rape.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One – "And the Prelimineries…"

_Thwack-THUD. Thwack THUD. Thwack THUD bounce..._

DCI Lewis threw down his racquet. Sweat was pouring from all five feet eight inches of him.

"Nob's game," he gasped.

"Invented in a London prison," grinned his DS. Lewis glared at him. James Hathaway. He wasn't even breaking a sweat.

"Only a nob would know that," he retorted childishly. "What's the score?"

"I, uh, wasn't counting," said James, not looking the other man in the eye as he used his racquet to bounce the ball off the floor.

"Oh, you're a rotten liar."

"8-1," admitted Hathaway, indicating first to himself and then to Lewis to explain that he was smashing his superior.

"Thank you. Serve," commanded Lewis, picking up his racquet. Hathaway was about to serve the ball when his mobile started ringing inside his sports bag, a few feet away, lying on a bench at the end of the squash court. He jogged over and answered it. Lewis took the moment's break to grab his water and take a drink.

"Hathaway. Superintendant Innocent, I-...yes, ma'am we're...well, actually, ma'am, we – yes ri-right away," he sighed, hanging up. She must have put the phone down.

"Terribly disappointing as I know this will be to you, sir, Superintendent Innocent urgently requires our presence at the station, and it's an order not to be ignored," he said, pompously straight-faced.

"What did she say?"

"That was the general gist."

Lewis nodded knowingly and headed off for a brief shower.

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The two men, showered and suited, were walking through the station doors within twenty minutes. Hathaway took the squash equipment to their office whilst Lewis tracked down their superior.

He quickly wished he hadn't bothered.

"Where the HELL have you been? And where's wonder boy?" she demanded harshly as soon as she saw the DCI.

"Putting some-"

"Never mind! We've got a suspected rape case coming in. 14-year-old girl. She was attacked at a concert last night. We're bringing in the band, but they're a bit rowdy, by all accounts. I know you don't usually handle rape cases, but I need your suspect expertise on this one. Have you got that?" she snapped.

Lewis decided it would be wisest to agree and question her further later. "Yes ma'am." He was saved from a further haul over hot coals by the simultaneous arrivals of Hathaway from somewhere inside the station, and the band from somewhere out with it.

Three men, two women. Two of the guys and one of the women were looking mortified, as they hissed comments such as "For the love of all the saints, PLEASE shut up. You're making it worse! Relax and go with it, doll." The other two were shouting and swearing abusively. The man had five uniformed officers dragging him along and the woman three. The abusive two were dragged straight into holding rooms, where the other three were stopped at the desk to hand over jewellery and be searched.

"I'm really sorry, but I need to frisk you," Lewis was surprised to hear an officer tell one of the women. She smiled kindly at him – she looked maybe early twenties, with curly brown hair and green eyes. She was unusually pretty.

"Look, mate, it's alright. Really. Go ahead and do your duty – but I don't want you copping a feel while you do it!" she teased him in a harsh Scottish accent. The cop laughed, frisked her and led her away. Lewis inclined his head to his junior officer. "Start with her," he muttered. Hathaway nodded and turned to one of the officers, who handed him a file on the band. It was slim. Lewis casually lifted it straight from his hand and made for interview room 2.

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"I'm DCI Lewis, and this is DS Hathaway."

"Well, gentlemen, I am at your service," she replied calmly, leaning back in her chair.

"Your friends seem a bit rowdy," commented Hathaway, sitting down.

"I'm sorry about that. I don't know what's come over them. They're not...no, they're NEVER like that. I can't explain it."

"Anack-zu-namun? Is that your real name?" he asked, looking up from the file he had grabbed back from his superior. The girl sitting opposite them laughed. She had a warm, friendly laugh.

"No. No, it's...it's not." She sat up straight. "Jaqueline Parlabane - Jack, at your service, gents. That's just a stage name. "

"You're the guitarist?" asked Lewis. She raised an eyebrow shot with a black stud.

"And I'm a girl. I'm also Scottish. The horror (!) Guilty on ALL charges, officer, clap 'er in irons!" she snapped. She took several deep breaths.

"Just calm down," Lewis told her.

She exhaled extremely slowly then looked up at the two cops, both now sitting opposite her. "My apologies gentlemen. It's been a rather trying day."

"You okay to go on?" Lewis enquired.

"Yes."

"Tell me about the band."

"We're a 5-card trick. I play lead guitars and sing alto harmony vocals. Terry plays bass and second male vocals. Peter is on keys and lead male vocals. Jack is on drums and Liza is lead vocalist."

"It says here you play heavy metal."

She chuckled softly. "If we're being technical, it's the subgenre of power metal with four or two-part harmonies and a 30-piece symphony orchestra thrown in for the hell of it." She caught the looks of surprise. "I'm a cellist and Liza works as a coloratura opera singer. We thought it would work. Peter told me it wouldn't, so I showed him, and then he showed me, and then we showed them, and wow it was good."

"So what's it called?" inquired the DS.

"In its most technical, if saft-sounding, form is symphonic power metal."

"So what's the band stand for?"

"What do you mean? Are we all for sex, drugs, rock, roll, breaking the law and slitting your wrists with a spoon while you listen? No. Obviously it's a bit quirky, it's a bit different and we play to a niche audience. So we use that to push an ethos of being yourself."

"Oh, you're not _serious_," said Hathaway.

"If you don't believe me, listen to the music. Look at the lyrics. See for yourself."

Lewis nodded. "We'll do just that."

She glanced at him. "Got a pen?"

He fumbled in his pockets, and after a moment, Hathaway drew a pen from his breast pocket and handed it to her with a charming smile. She pulled out her wallet, hauled out a card, clicked on the pen and scribbled on the back of it.

"Here you go," she smiled, handing it to him. The two men squinted at her neat handwriting.

Matt Demongê (manager) – 01831 885 776

. – username JackP, password hAck

"Live the dream?" asked Hathaway. She raised a black-studded eyebrow.

"The band website. Log in with my username and password, go into the staff section, have a swatch."

Lewis stood. "Thank you for your help ma'am."

"It's a pleasure. Can I go?"

"Yes, you can go for now, but we may need to contact you later," Hathaway told her.

"Other side of the card," she told him. He flipped it over and found her details.

"Gentlemen, it's been a slice," she said, shaking hands with Hathaway and nodding to Lewis as she walked out.

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James Hathaway was stretched out on his sofa, a book of Nietzsche in his hand. He'd been trying to read it, but his attention was wandering. He dropped his hand, resting it and the book on his stomach. He dozed off for a while. Can't have been more than twenty minutes. He awoke to his doorbell ringing – someone wanting directions. He gave them the information without much thought, and then did what he always did when his mind was wandering. He drew the curtains, turned the lights off and picked up his guitar from its stand in the corner of the living room. He sat back on the sofa and tuned it by ear, trailing one hand fondly over the smooth wood. He knew this instrument inside out.

When the guitar was tuned, James walked to the kitchen and poured a glass of red wine. He took a sip, savouring the bittersweet taste as it burned heat into his mouth, then through his throat.

_One piece_, he thought to himself. _Just ONE piece, then I'll eat_. He took the wine through into the living room and sat it on the coffee table, picked up his guitar and started to play. The sorrow-soaked notes of the line he had written to "Miserere mei, Deus" filled the studio flat as he played it over and over, with increasing volume and speed.

The music rose, soared and he felt the familiar catch in his throat as the rhythm of his breathing adapted to meet that of the piece, the hollow feeling created by the alcohol and his empty stomach meant he could feel the vibrations from the guitar in his whole body, he was hunched over it, playing it again, louder, better, oh bugger, was that his phone? Yes, it bloody well was. Damn!

He muted off the strings with one hand and grabbed his mobile. _DCI Lewis calling_, flashed the screen. The boss. Great (!)

"Yes sir?"

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Lewis sighed and drank some more of his tea. "Damn. Damn, damn, damn, dammit, dammit..."

"Something wrong, Lewis?" It was Innocent. She'd been passing the open door and heard him cursing the world under his breath.

"No, ma'am, not wrong, just...frustrating."

Innocent came in, closing the door behind her and perched on his desk. "What is it?"

Lewis sighed. "This case, ma'am. The only line of enquiry we have are the band members, and it's led us nowhere. I've been hunting for them on the internet and I've spoken to some journalists."

"Revealing what?"

"Nothing. No pasts of crime, no dangers. Not even a speeding ticket between them. Can't find much on the guitarist, though, but we're working on that."

Innocent perched on the edge of his desk. "I'm not so sure that they're quite as good as gold as all that. Take a week and dig on them. Follow them. Talk to them. Seven days, Robbie," she reiterated, seeing that he was about to protest.

_Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring BRING!!!_ The phone sitting on Lewis's desk seemed to get more insistent. He scrabbled through the sheaves of messy papers until he grabbed the white landline and gasped into a breathless "'Ello?"

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Lewis put his hands flat on the wall, breathing heavily. From somewhere nearby he heard someone vomiting violently. He gagged, breathed in through his nose and held the breath, willing his stomach to settle. A couple more breaths and he straightened up. A couple more and he was walking out of the alleyway and back to the murder scene. A uniformed bobby ran past him, throwing up in the street. Lewis himself paled but remained composed. _And I used to mock Morse for this, _thought the nauseated DCI, feeling the now-familiar pang at the memory of his mentor. He pulled off his scene suit and grabbed another, stepping into it and zipping it over his suit as he stepped back into the house. _God. Poor git._ The man before him was hanging from the balcony, but was drenched in blood and missing the lower half of his right leg. Judging from the black clots of drying blood around his knee, it hadn't been an old injury. The smell was vile in the warm September air. Hathaway walked out of another room in the house and approached his boss. He noticed the deep, measured breathing and pale skin.

"You all right, sir?"

Lewis nodded, then looked at his sergeant. "You don't look too well yourself."

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The two guys stood outside the house, away from the crowd in bloodied, torn scene suits. Hathaway hunted in his suit pockets until he found a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit a smoke, drawing it deeply a couple of times before exhaling.

"That better is it?" Lewis asked, a touch sardonically. He'd quit smoking years ago and disliked seeing his sharp young sergeant poisoning himself. He noticed the hand holding the cigarette shake just a little, and felt bad. A uniform rushed up.

"Sir."

"Go away."

"But sir!"

"Come back in a minute!"

"But Sir, you really need to take a look at this!"

Lewis sighed and turned around. "What?" He froze. He actually thought, for a moment, that his heart stopped beating. "Get that band back in holding cells," he told Hathaway, his eyes rooted on the ID card held before him.

"What?" He felt Hathaway lean over his shoulder. Heard him curse. Because the dismemebered, unrecognisable corpse was Matt Demongê. The band's manager.


	2. Chapter 2

Hathaway straightened his tie and grabbed the second cup of takeaway coffee from the counter, carrying them to the office.

"The band are now in holding rooms one through five, sir," he said, setting a coffee on his superior's desk and taking a swig from his own. "Where do you want to start?"

Lewis was still staring perplexedly at his computer screen then he looked up at Hathaway. "Your pal, I thinks," he said, lifting the coffee and heading for the holding room.

When the entered they found the guitarist sitting with her head tipped back, her zen sitting on the table in front of her, loud enough for the music to be heard.

"_Angus _Dei from 'A Mass for Peace' by Karl Jenkins," she said, without looking up.

"I wondered," admitted Hathaway. As the choral harmony swelled to a crescendo, she slowly sat forward, the tipped position of her neck tugging the pick strung around her neck tight against her throat. She stopped the music.

Lewis was flipping through her file. "Sorry, seams I'm a few details short. Your current address, how long have you been there?"

"Oh, a good forty eight hours," she replied.

"Where did you live before that?"

"Sweets Lane."

Hathaway tried to place it. "West End?"

"West Vegas."

There was a pause. "This rape. Haven't you proved we're nothing to do with it? I mean, it was just 'preliminary information' yesterday, and now we're back today. I have a job to do," she said strainedly.

"Well we'll try not to keep you from your work. But you are a prime suspect."

"What? For raping a teenage girl? I was on_stage_. There are what, 300 witnesses? Either charge me or let me go. Have you brought in the others?"

"Your fellow band members are here, yes," said Hathaway coolly. The door opened and a uniformed officer came in.

"Sorry to interrupt, sir, but DS Innocent urgently needs to see you both."

The officers got up to go. "What about me?" Jack demanded.

"We'll be back with you in a little while," said Hathaway.

The guitarist slammed her hands on the table. "I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING!". The cops left without a word.

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"Arrest the guitarist," Innocent said crisply.

"What?"

"The victim just identified her as her rapist. Arrest her. Now, Robbie," she commanded.

"But what about Ma-"

"Matt Demongê was a drugs trafficker, heavily involved in the gangland. His killer is not in that band."

"How do you know that?" protested Hathaway.

"Because he's in a cell!" shouted Innocent. The men were stunned.

"Go on. Go!"

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Hathaway sat in the office, a mug of tea in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

"You knew, didn't you?" asked Lewis gently. The sergeant nodded dumbly.

"You liked her, you know? She was…charming. I guess I just didn't want it to be true," he said emotionally, before taking a long, hard draw at his cigarette.

"Come on man." Lewis stood him up. "You're in no fit state to be working. Go on."

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James Hathaway stayed with a friend that weekend. That night, Friday, they went clubbing. They spent Saturday mutually bemoaning headaches or retching into basins, sinks or buckets. They repeated the pattern from Saturday to Sunday. When he came into work on Monday morning, James wasn't sure if his stomach had anything left in it, when it had last had anything in it or if he was still drunk or hung-over, so it wasn't surprising that when he was called into Innocent's office first thing and saw her having tea with the guitarist and rapist he'd read her rights the week before, he considered the possibility that he was hallucinating.

Lewis joined him a moment later, and the two men stared at the two women, then at each other, then at the women again.

"How…" It was all James could manage, but it seemed to do the trick.

The guitarist turned and grinned. "Ah, gentlemen. Welcome. Confused?"

Open-mouthed nods, although the motion caused James's stomach to turn.

"Someone didn't do their research," she said, flicking her wrist casually. Something shiny flew towards the men, who both ducked. When they pulled themselves up and saw what she'd thrown, they were in utter disbelief.

An ID badge. Special Branch.

"Why didn't you say anything?" cried Hathaway. She gave a long, lazy shrug.

"Where's the fun in that?"

Lewis clicked on the difference in her speech instantly. "You're not Scottish!"

"Oh very well observed," she replied straight-faced.

"You lied the _whole time_?" Hathaway said, still utterly disbelieving.

"Oh, he's quick(!)" she said, inkling her head to Jean.

There was a long pause as the men realised just how juped they'd been. "The Mass for Peace." Hathaway said all of a sudden. "What metal guitarist listens to Angus Deis on their days off?"

**END OF EPISODE ONE**


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